With a steadying breath, she knocked and – without waiting for a reply, before she lost her nerve – entered. Kit looked back at her; his bow tie was dangling loosely either side of his shirt, the top button undone; he too had a tumbler of cognac in his hand. Everyone was needing something fortifying tonight, seemingly.

‘Oh god, no,’ he moaned at the sight of her, half-turning away. ‘I can’t . . . I can’t deal with you right now . . . Just please go.’

She arched an eyebrow. Please? His manners made her nervous; it must be bad if he was being polite to her. She stepped further into the room. ‘I want to hear your side.’

His whole body slumped. ‘If you think I’m sitting down and doing a fucking interview with you, in the middle of the night—’

‘Not an interview. I just want to hear it from you. Is she telling the truth?’

He stared back at her in a long-held silence, as though astounded she was even questioning it. ‘Well, she must be,’ he said finally. ‘It’s in the papers, right?’ He turned away, a hand on his hip. He sighed again, then knocked back his drink.

‘Is she lying?’ she asked again.

‘What reason would she have to lie?’

‘I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you.’

‘Well, from what I’ve read so far, she’s given a compelling account,’ he said evenly. ‘I’d sure believe it . . . The timing’s funny though, right?’ He stared at her. ‘After four years apart, her married to some rich dude . . . and suddenly she is struck by the urge to . . . come out with that.’ He gestured blankly towards his iPad on the bed, opened on the newspaper reports.

She knew what his point was. ‘We only contacted her as a matter of routine. As far as we knew, interviewing her would have been no different to interviewing Ari or Beau . . . she was someone who was close to you back then, someone who could give us insight into who you were, how you were feeling, what was going on in your life . . . How could we have known—?’

‘That I pummelled her? Beat her up? Pulled her across the floor by the hair?’

She felt herself go cold at the words.

His eyes narrowed. ‘How did you even know about her?’ She shrugged. ‘Research. Leads come up in the course of conversations . . . We weren’t looking for it . . . But why did you keep the relationship a secret?’

‘Because I was beating her up! Why else? She couldn’t leave the house with all those bruises now, could she?’ Every word burned with scorn.

‘This will destroy your reputation.’

‘What reputation?’ he scoffed. ‘I lost that long before tonight.’

Cory shimmered between them, but she blinked him away.

‘Kit, if she’s lying, then you have to say so. By saying nothing, you’re condemning yourself.’